Swimming: Phelps sets two world records in 50 minutes

Eighteen years old last month, Michael Phelps has come of age here this week and showed it by destroying another two world records in 50 minutes here last night.

The record books are being rewritten at these World Championships at a pace hard to keep up with. With two days of competition to come, 10 world records have been set, while Jenny Thompson made history by winning her 12th Championship medal.

Phelps lined up in the second semi-final of the 100 metres butterfly last night having watched Ukrainian Andrii Serdinov set a world record 51.76sec in the first semi-final. Knowing he had an appointment less than an hour later with Ian Thorpe to race for the world title over the 200m individual medley, many thought that Phelps would cruise his swim.

But the American had other ideas. After recording the slowest 50m split of all 16 swimmers in the event, Phelps put on a show, storming through the field to stop the clock in 51.47sec and leave Serdinov with the honour of holding the world record for less than five minutes.

Fifty minutes later, it was time for the showdown: Phelps and Thorpe over the 200m medley, a mouth-watering head-to-head between the two dominant swimmers in the world. They started together but Phelps was so far ahead at the first turn that it was a dramatic mismatch. The American comprehensively dismantled his previous best to take an astonishing one-and-a-half seconds off the world record, finishing in 1min 56.04sec. Thorpe broke the Australian record to finish second, but was over three-and-a-half seconds behind.

"I'm excited, for sure," Phelps said. "After the 100 fly world record I was very fired up. Coming into the second one I wanted to break it again. So I just went out there and laid it on the line in the first 100 and tried to hang on. That first world record fired me up big time. When [Serdinov] hit the wall, I was pumped."

On a terrific night for the Americans, the Olympic silver medallist Amanda Beard equalled the world record on her way to gold in the 200m breaststroke.

There were mixed fortunes for Britain. Katie Sexton and Sarah Price both have medal chances in today's 200m backstroke final, as Sexton lines up second fastest in the event and Price will start in sixth. A British record from either, or both, would be enough for a medal.

But Scotland's Graeme Smith finished fourth in the 800m freestyle final, an event in which he won bronze two years ago. Chasing his own British record, Smith was unable to hold his early pace as he was passed late in the race and missed the bronze medal by an agonising 0.33sec.

"I'm very disappointed,'" he said. "I took the first 200m hard to try to shake off the others. I felt all right, but after 400m I struggled to hold the pace. After I had lost third place, I just couldn't fight back."

The fact that Smith was so close is testament to his ability to withstand the pain of racing. It is only two months since he suffered a random attack in Manchester and spent two days in hospital as a result. His recovery lasted two weeks and will surely have cost him a medal here.

"Although the attack affected my training over the last five weeks, I have been training as well as ever recently, so I don't think it was a major factor," he said.

Today's highlight will be the return to the pool of Alex Popov. A dramatic gold in the 100m freestyle has put the swimming world deeply in awe of the talent of this Russian, and gold in the 50m today will be his third of the week, when many expected him to win none.

Mark Foster will hope to be in the hunt for medals, but will have to do it from one of the outside lanes after recording the seventh fastest time from the semi-finals. It is likely that Foster will have to break his own British record of 22.13sec if he wants to win a medal.

The Palace of Sant Jordi here will crown its new king of swimming on Sunday evening. With three more events still to swim, it is likely that Phelps will take over the reign from Thorpe.